When Charlotte Liebling was in college, she volunteered at a store that sold secondhand goods. She saw people bringing in old things to donate, including stuffed toys (毛绒玩具). The toys held great emotional value for their owners. So she felt uncomfortable when the toys were sold very cheaply or put in the dog-toy section (区域).
One night when she got home from work, Liebling started doing some research. She realized this wasn’t happening only in her town. Worldwide, millions of old toys end up in landfills (废物填埋地) every year. Liebling kept thinking all night. “If we can change the idea that stuffed toys lose their value once they’ve been loved,” she thought, “then we can show people they have so much left in them, and give them to others.” That’s how the Loved Before company began.
How does it work? People donate soft toys. They can do so through email, or by taking a toy to a local store. The original owner writes down the name of the toy and a story about it. Next, the toy is cleaned, photographed, and packaged with its name and story. Every Monday, toys are posted for adoption (领养) on the Loved Before website. The company makes a donation of at least half of the money from the sale of each toy.
Since its creation in 2019, Loved Before has sold more than 50,000 stuffed toys. But the company’s goal is more than “just trying to save some toys from landfills,” Liebling says. “We’re trying to change people’s minds on a really wide level.” She explains that Loved Before hopes to teach kids “about the value of loving secondhand things again, in the hope that it will go far beyond the idea of teddy bears.”
13980503458
13980503458
admin@qisuen.cn
